


here and now

by gigglesandfreckles



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: (sort of?), Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Major Character Deaths not DEPICTED but sensed, Post-Order 66 (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28840704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigglesandfreckles/pseuds/gigglesandfreckles
Summary: the Force has tried to swallow Ahsoka Tano three times. it's hard to be the last one standing.[or Ahsoka feels the death of three important men in her life and is tired of being left behind]
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Ahsoka Tano, Plo Koon & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 27
Kudos: 140





	here and now

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this is a culmination of an upsetting dream I had last night. I woke up irrevocably sad, so I had to pull you guys down with me obviously. :-) 
> 
> *trigger warning: this has some angst and there is a moment near the end where Ahsoka weighs the option of giving herself over to the Force. this can be read as contemplating suicide, so although this is not my intent...I want to be overly sensitive toward this subject. please, please, please do not read this if that makes you uncomfortable. I value your mental health more than your reading of my fic. that being said, there IS a happy ending in those regards.

The Force has tried to swallow Ahsoka Tano three times.

i.

It first happens when she’s just felt the entire galaxy shift out of place. 

Though she’s never known true stability in the Force, she’s also never known _this_. Like the Force has missed a step and instead of catching itself, it’s only tumbling down and down and never quite reaches the bottom of the proverbial staircase. Only speeds up as it somersaults further and further into darkness. 

She barely has a moment to ground herself in the here and now, because _that’s what her Master has taught her_ and even though he isn’t here and even though she has sensed something shifting not just in the Force but also _in him_ , she clings to those lessons. They have sustained her and binded her for this long. 

His strangled cry of ‘ _what have I done?’_ still rings in her ears.

So she stumbles down the bridge, holding her head and trying to sort through what she has just sensed.

“Rex,” she breathes, as the doors slide open. Glad to have a friend. “It’s Anakin. I feel like something terrible has happened.”

But something has shifted in Rex, too. His signature in the Force is different than any Jedi she knows, but she knows it just as intimately. He trembles and his helmet clatters to the floor.

And suddenly there’s no think, only _feel_ , as she is fighting for her life. Fighting against the very men, very _friends_ , who have protected her so many times before. There’s no time for processing or questions or even simple revelation because she’s always felt pride in the skill of the 501st and it turns out that their accuracy and lethalness only strengthened when their blasters were on _her_.

It’s not until later, when she’s released Maul and is frantically going through the database archives that she realises.

The feeling. The tiny blaster bolts she has been feeling to her heart, her _soul_ , in rapid fire since the moment on the bridge. She thought it was adrenaline or fear or something of that accord, but she _realises_ what she has been feeling.

It’s loss.

The Force is tumulting as thousands of beings are prematurely transformed into it. It beats like a bleeding heart out of rhythm as it absorbs Jedi after Jedi into it. Flickers and needles of vacancy then burning as the other side of the Force–as _death_ –grows.

The Force has become a see-saw and somehow, _somehow_ , the balance has shifted and the heavier weight is not where it should be. Not between Jedi and Sith, but between those living and dead. 

How– _how is this happening?_

Once again, there’s no time to process or apply any sort of real logic because there’s Rex’s report. And it doesn’t make sense, but it _does_. She’s been gone from the Order for some time now, but Fives had always been a friend. 

His absence is one of the first things she noticed in her reunion with the 501st.

“–it’s possible that the inhibitor chips the Kaminoans placed inside us...have a purpose we don’t yet understand,” Rex’s hologram is concluding.

And suddenly pieces are fitting together and she’s remembering Obi-Wan’s poorly veiled apprehension concerning the Chancellor over the past few years and the seemingly questionable origins of Master Syfo Dias’ request for the clone army and–

Ahsoka stops. Because the needles of loss and pain and death become something else entirely. And this time, there’s no holding herself upright.

She crumples to the floor, crying out as she braces herself on her wrists.

 _Not him_. It _can’t_ be him, because he’s been there since the _beginning_ and he’s supposed to be there until the _end_.

The Force crushes around her, compressing and pushing until she thinks her head is going to explode from the aggression of it.

Master Plo and his kind smile beyond the mask the other younglings used to be scared of.

Gone.

Ahsoka releases a sob and lets herself _feel_ for a moment because she’s powerless against it. She sees herself tentatively placing her tiny hand into his extended one after saying goodbye to her birth parents. Her first step into the family she would create. Master Plo pulling her in with all the gentleness and warmth only he was capable of.

He’d never sighed even once at her thousands of ridiculous questions on the way to Coruscant. Or hesitated to open his arms when she requested sitting on his lap to see her first glimpse of space. He’d visited her in the creche every day for the first month of her living at the Temple, often smuggling in desserts and taking her out for walks and Coruscant adventures.

Master Plo had been her first teacher and her first friend. The first Force bond she had ever established, even if it hadn’t been intentional at the time.

The severing of that bond feels like the severing of her own soul.

R7 beeps beside her and she’s ripped from her grief. She has a mission to complete.

  
  


ii.

It’s not until years later, when she’s found a new purpose and a new reason to pull herself out of bed every morning, that she feels it again.

She’s settled in with the Rebel Alliance as much as possible, but Ahsoka Tano has never really settled in anywhere. Helping people, though–that’s something she’s always known is worth whatever discomfort it may bring. 

It’s the late evening, or so she assumes. Her extended time in deep space has left her with a loose concept of time. But she’s finished with her duties for the day and retires to her quarters. Not to sleep, because she doesn’t do much of that these days.

But to think. It’s something she prioritises because she lived too many years in self-inflicted blindness and it’s time for her to reorient herself with truth, even if it’s hard. Since Malachor, she’s confident there is no truth that can break her.

She makes herself tea, not because she likes it, but because it gives her something to do. The methodical motions of filling the kettle and shoveling loose-leaf particles into a bag are tactile and grounding.

The water begins to boil and the kettle begins to whistle when the air goes out of the room. Suddenly, she can’t hear the whistle and she can’t breathe because the Force is so ferociously trying to get her attention.

Ahsoka fights and flails against it because she was wrong, she was wrong, she was wrong, there _is_ a truth that can break her.

She collapses across the counter and the teacup she had just pulled from the shelf clatters to the floor, shattering into shards and pieces of porcelain and her heart. 

And how cruel the Force can be because _of course_ a shattered teacup marks the galaxy’s loss of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

She makes her way to the single chair she has in her small living space aboard the star cruiser and curls into it, crying and crying and crying because she knew this day would come, but no amount of anticipation has prepared her for this. 

When she’d found him on Tatooine those years ago, he’d told her of the way the Force had revealed his fate to her. That he finally understood his place in the galaxy’s redemption. He’d been destined to be a teacher always, from the unconventional beginning of his knighthood when he’d had a young boy thrust upon him to the ending of it all, on that young boy’s planet waiting for the time to teach his son. 

He’d never been meant to save the galaxy in the ways he’d tried when he was younger. But he was at peace with the sacrifice he knew he would make. For the galaxy, for Luke, _for Anakin_.

Ahsoka had cried then, too, sitting in his small Tatooine hut and listening to him tell her of his visions and dreams. He spoke with a serene smile even then and she’d hated him for it. How could he be _okay_ with the fate he’d been given? How could he be okay with _leaving her?_

He’d moved closer to her on the couch and wrapped an arm around her as she wept into his shoulder.

“You’re all I have left, Master Kenobi,” she’d choked. 

“Your place is not with me anymore, dear one,” he’d whispered into her montrals.

“My place will _always_ be with you.”

“And we will meet again one day. On the other side of the Force.” He’d smiled sagely then and sighed into her. “But you mustn’t hurry to follow me there.”

Now, curled into the chair in her quarters aboard the star cruiser, she doesn’t have the luxury of his warm robes and soothing whispers. Instead, she is left with a shattered teacup and memories.

Of Obi-Wan spinning her until she’s dizzy in the middle of a senatorial gala after a mission that left her heart aching for the men she felt responsible for losing.

Of him passing her his heavily-annotated books and conspiratorially whispering, “Since I know you’re not getting quality literature from _your_ Master.”

Of him staying up all night with a holopad and yarn, teaching himself to knit, so he could quietly fix the hole Ahsoka had ripped in the scarf Anakin had gotten her for Life Day.

Her Grand Master, always leading out in what it meant to be good, through and through. 

Then suddenly, unlike Order 66, when the pain had been so insistent and the situation had been so dire that she’d had no time to seek peace–it finds her.

She didn’t go looking for it, yet here it is. An overwhelming wave of serenity that she immediately recognises in the Force, because only Obi-Wan could make her feel swaddled and safe with his remote presence. 

He’s here; she knows it. She can’t see him to wrap her arms around him the way she aches to, but uncurling from herself the tiniest bit, she can almost hear his light chuckle, followed by, “Well, go on, little one. That mess isn’t going to clean itself.” She looks to the pieces of porcelain on the floor and pulls herself from the chair.

Obi-Wan, who seemed to practically be _born_ to clean up other peoples’ messes. Especially hers. One with the Force.

As if he hadn’t always _been_.

...

iii. 

She’s fretting in a way she shouldn’t be. Rex can take care of himself. She knows that better than anyone.

But something about the way he locked eyes with her and said, “I _have_ to do this,” before loading the transport to Endor made her uneasy.

So she waits–for any news from the moon. It’s not just about Rex, it’s about the _galaxy_ , but sometimes it’s easier for Ahsoka to focus on the small things and, right now, she just wants a holo-message from her Captain saying he’s safe.

The holo-message doesn’t come, but a complete reorientation of the Force does.

She doesn’t cry. 

Tears seem a trivial response for the vacuum that forms inside of her.

It is pulling and tearing at every piece of her, practically flipping her inside out. But she just stands there with her hands twisting at her skirt and her eyes shut tight, waiting for it to pass. 

An eternity passes and her heart is ripped into pieces.

For a moment, she wonders if this is it. If the Force will finally have it’s way and pull her to the other side. She thinks of the familiar faces and warm smiles that will be there to greet her and wonders if she doesn’t want to let it.

As she thinks it, something grips her. 

It grounds her to the _here and now_ , like her Master had always taught her, and doesn’t let her move. It’s cold but warm, heavy but light, and she doesn’t know what to make of it, only that it is fighting against the Force on her behalf.

She is bewildered because who can _possibly_ fight the _Force?_

And like a gust, it hits her. The phantom grip leaves her and the dangerous storm of the Force inside her goes silent and she knows. _She knows_.

“Anakin,” she whispers on a breath. 

There is no response, but she doesn’t need to see or hear him to know he’s there. That _Anakin’s_ there. Not Vader.

“Let me go,” she gasps trembling. Because she needs to see him. She needs to see blue eyes and an easy smirk again after all these years and if that means joining with the Force _right now_ , then that’s what she wants. Her comm begins to beep, but she hits it off. She’s not interested in anything this world has to offer her right now. It’s a world without Plo and Obi-Wan and Anakin and she’s _so tired_ of being left behind.

She shuts her eyes again and wills the storm to return, to take her with it, but she is met with silence.

“ _Let me go,_ ” she chokes out, violently, throwing her comm to the floor. It continues to beep.

The Force, which had never held anything back in it’s attacks on her through the dark years of the Empire, eludes her. As if someone is holding it out of her grip. 

She knows who it is and she is _angry_.

“ _No!!_ ” she screams. “I’m ready! I’ve done my part! You’re gone, you’re _all gone,_ and I want to come _with you_.” She drops to her knees and tries not to cry because he’s _here_ and she won’t give him that satisfaction.

“I don’t have a purpose without you,” she whispers.

The comm beeps again and she picks it up, furiously slapping the button, “ _What?!_ ” she all but screams into it.

Rex’s face appears and she almost loses the fight against her own tears.

“Ahsoka!” He is grinning, smiling in a way she hasn’t seen since the Clone Wars. His voice comes out garbled and patchy, the hologram not quite forming, but it’s _enough_.

“Rex,” she breathes, relief overpowering her anger. “You’re okay.”

“ _We won!!!!_ ” he shouts in child-like glee. 

She nods, still pushing back the tears. Because of course she knows. The Force flows through the galaxy in a way it never has before. It is illuminating, unlike anything Ahsoka has ever felt. She’s never known light like this to be the resting point of the galaxy, having grown accustomed to conflict and clouds within the Force as a child–and then _darkness_.

For so long.

But now–she feels it. Like she is breathing pure air for the first time in her life.

The Force tickles the corner of her consciousness and she knows that it’s only doing so on Anakin’s bidding. 

“I have to go, but I’ll see you tonight! We’re all rendezvousing on Endor at nineteen hundred!” Rex is still shouting because he’s never quite learned how the newest communicators work, no matter how many times Ahsoka has told him to speak at a normal volume.

She forces a smile. “I’ll see you then, Rexster.”

“See ya, kid!”

And then he’s gone and she’s straightening up from the floor.

“This doesn’t change anything,” she shouts into the void of the room because she knows he’s still there and she’s starting to wonder if they’re _all_ there. But her voice lacks conviction.

The first tear streams down her cheek and she swipes at it furiously. _No._

“I’m not needed here!” she insists. “The war is over! Balance has been restored!”

More tears. She rubs at her eyes until they are raw.

“Please.”

There are too many tears for her to defend against, so she gives in, her shoulders crumpling in on themselves and her breathing coming out broken and uneven.

" _I_ _want to be with you._ ”

But as she says it, something in her breaks because she knows this is a moment where she can’t run from who she is. Official titles and past decisions aside–she is a _Jedi_ and she can’t ignore that.

And, somehow, through the new light of the Force that permeates the air, she still feels sorrow. Not her own. Because he already knows what she doesn’t want to admit and it pains him as much as it pains her.

“I have to stay,” she breathes through clamped eyes. Ahsoka can’t escape this. “You can’t take me with you.”

It’s an admission, a realisation, and a grievance.

She takes a steadying, but shaky breath. “The Force can be a real _bitch,_ you know,” she frowns grumpily to no one in particular. 

But she knows he sees because the Force rushes back into her immediately. She tries to find the storm inside her one more time, just for good measure, but it’s gone. And she knows that’s his doing.

“Never could let me fight my own battles, huh, Master?”

He doesn’t respond in word, but she feels a jolt of energy that she hasn’t felt in years. It’s reminiscent to the moments of being back-to-back with him, lightsabers in hand and matching grins on display. 

She can’t help but smile now. Knows that somewhere in the room, he’s doing the same.

Her comm beeps with another incoming message and it shakes her from her reverie. Another beep. Then another. The messages keep coming in and Ahsoka’s smile grows because she knows what she’ll hear.

_It’s over._

Words she’s been waiting to hear since she became a Padawan.

“You did it, Master,” she whispers into the room. Pride in her heart and warmth in her soul. And then her smile becomes a grin. “Fucking _took you long enough_.”

The Force laughs around her.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading/kudosing/commenting!!!!
> 
> scream about Star Wars with me on my [ tumblr ](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/giggles-and-freckles)!


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